. >> five days to go and counting before we fall off the so-called fiscal cliff and while there's no deal, more news out of washington and our very own john harwood is there. >> reporter: mandy, we've got a letter from the republican leadership to the president and to the democrats in the senate saying that the house has acted, they passed legislation last year to extend all the tax cuts and to shift the scheduled sequester cuts from defense to domestic programs, but, of course, in urging the senate to act saying, well, we've acted, now it's your turn, we're simply not going to see the democrats take them up on that because president obama since that letter has won the election and now we're looking at the possibility of a mini deal that would get enacted before january 1st but so far all we've heard are the sounds of silence in the negotiations. a senior white house official told me today when i asked was there any holiday season progress, back channel progress over the past couple of days, got a one-word reply, no. second, the democratic senate leadership says there's a 50/50 chanc